While the U.S. alt-seafood market has been sluggish at best, Big Idea Ventures (BIV) has plans to change that. The agrifoodtech investor recently unveiled Bayou Best Foods, the newest entrant to the plant-based seafood sector.
Bayou Best Foods will have “a strong focus on delivering an eating experience that mimics, in taste and texture, animal-based seafood items,” said CEO Kelli Wilson in a statement. “Our mission is to provide a product that can replace shrimp in any traditional menu or dish.”
Wilson has more than three decades worth of industry experience, with stints at companies like ConAgra, Perdue Farms, Partake Foods, and Blue Apron. She also recently served as Beyond Meat’s global head of quality.
Bayou Best Foods will use co-packers to manufacture its products and aim to launch in the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily concentrating on foodservice. The firm will initially focus on plant-based shrimp.
And, while alt-seafood hasn’t yet resonated with most of America (the category accounted for just $14 million in U.S. retail sales in 2022), the new firm is nevertheless optimistic.
“We’re working very closely with BIV partners on innovation and pilot trials, and then we will scale up with contract manufacturers,” Wilson told AFN. “We’re using simple blending and heating and forming followed by freezing and packaging for ready-to-heat products.
“What excites me about this is that it’s a very straightforward process,” she added. “We’re not trying to go in and build a second factory inside a factory that doesn’t scale well, which is what so many alternative protein companies are doing today if they don’t have the manufacturing capability in-house.”
BIV, meanwhile, still sees potential in the plant-based category as a whole.
“The plant-based market is sick, but it’s not dead,” BIV chief investment officer Tom Mastrobuoni told AFN. “The plant-based category is boring right now. It’s stale.
“In any category, first you have the pioneers, then you have people that want to do it too, and ultimately you end up with the very few who actually know how to do it and how to make money doing it. So, in alternative protein we’re at the stage where we’re going to see consolidation.”
But, he added: “This is a well-capitalized company run by professional food industry folks.”
The Food Institute Podcast
Tom Hamill, a food and beverage senior analyst for RSM US LLP, joined The Food Institute Podcast to recap the 2024 Summer Fancy Food Show. Hamill shares his thoughts on burgeoning trends from the show and how emerging specialty food brands can best navigate economic factors in the years to come.
